Since I've left my last job, I've been thinking about the guy who used me as an alternative to ChatGPT whenever he hit a problem that he couldn't vibe code the answer out of at work.

He basically rotted his own brain by compulsively using ChatGPT in lieu of actually thinking with most any of the projects he was working on. Instead of taking the time to read through code in our framework, look up documentation, or do any sort of debugging, he instead just begged and pleaded with ChatGPT to try and get somewhere because "it was faster." Basically just really hammering his brain with the Programmer's Slot Machine. (@davidgerard wrote a really good article here about this specific gambling addiction angle here. I highly highly recommend reading/watching the corresponding YouTube video:
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/generative-ai-runs-on-gambling-addiction-just-one-more-prompt-bro/ )

Back to the story; When that wasn't working, which was a significant portion of the time, he'd then just turn and use me as a "more informed alternative" to ChatGPT.

I worked fully remote and the majority of our interactions was via a Teams chat. which apparently crossed some wires in his monkey brain and made him start just... Basically verbally barraging me like he would with the company ChatGPT instance. No thoughts at all, just an immediate process of:

- Ask vague question
- Get guess for an answer with a request for more details
- Try applying the guess blindly without thinking if it's applicable at all
- Have it not work and just report back that it didn't work.
- No follow-up details, no further explanation of what was going on or what he's trying to do. Nothing added past the original vague situation
- If lucky, I might get a screenshot of part of the error, meticulously sliced before it gave something useful in the output because he stopped reading error output to things and made no attempt to understand it. (Why? ChatGPT can do that part!)
- Rinse and Repeat until I get fed up and get into a call with him
- Fix the thing in less than a minute, pointing out that he should have been able to tell what was wrong almost immediately if he actually dropped a break-point and debugged the code at *literally any point* along the way
- Fuck off immediately after getting his fix, no thank you or anything
- start the process anew the following day when he vibe coded himself into a corner all over again

I literally had to go to leadership and make them have a talk with him and get him to leave me the fuck alone at work, after repeated attempts to establish boundaries about it, due to how much time it sucked out of me being able to work on other projects. Effectively just doubling up my work and slamming me with burn out right at the start of the year for absolutely no reason other than his belligerent insistence to just Not Do His Job Without His Hand Being Held By A Chat Window.

It rapidly went from a "He sometimes asks informed questions that I can answer and help him with. I enjoy working with him" to "The dude isn't even trying in the slightest and is now basically offloading his work onto me because he broke his capacity to actually do work independently of an external chat window. I fucking hate him and I hope he gets in a car wreck so I can get a break from the bleakness of dealing with him every goddamn morning"

ChatGPT has basically just been an absolute blight for me since it's inception. Going from the team being generally pro-crypto to intensely pro-genAI/LLM because their favorite scammers (er.. I mean YouTubers) had them hooked on a fantasy of some day making it Big by jumping from one Hype cycle to the next. I sincerely was very close to just finding an entirely different career path altogether because of just how incredibly shitty it was working with that team on just about anything, but lacking the job experience on the resume to land someplace else.

Nobody wanted to be an actual expert, nobody really wanted to learn anything. They had their degree and ChatGPT, which means they learned all they ever will need. ...While working in an industry that tends to re-invent itself every half decade or so while half-assing solutions with an outsourced bullshit generator. 🫠

All in the name of "Well it got me from point A to point B faster." and leaving it at that, despite taking significantly longer than they should have from the get go over it.

I've seen and lived what an AI Fueled future looks like:
Mediocre men harassing their talented and likely autistic peers until their peers just up and fuckin leave to a different organization out of frustration and exhaustion.

I think down the road, we'll be able to measure the negative impact using LLMs has on people's cognitive faculties by comparing it to horse kicks to the head, and only be exaggerating it by a little bit.

By reading this toot, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges.

@pluralistic you ever see my MEULA refrigerator magnet? https://www.flickr.com/photos/publicresourceorg/6784282243

Sighted users often use bold or large fonts to create the appearance of headings in documents. People using screen readers have no way of understanding these visual cues. Use heading styles from the styles menu to correctly format headings.

"Once a Waqf is declared, it cannot be alienated in any form. The British thought that Waqf, particularly for children, was a ‘a perpetuity of the worst and the most pernicious kind’ in order to circumvent property laws, while forgetting the old adage that charity begins at home"

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/how-new-waqf-law-undermines-muslim-rights/amp?s=09

Nehru Place in Delhi (and similar places in other Indian cities) have been doing this kind of jugaad for many years.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops

Now that I'm on this quest to replace US services, I can atest that leaving Google is really hard for many reasons. At least single sign-on passwords will not be a problem here as I never use this.

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-ecosystem-lock-in-getting-stronger/

If you're 50 and over, talk to your doctor about getting the shingles vaccine and not just to prevent the painful rash, but for a potential off-target effect: protection against dementia!

I wrote about this in my science column this week for Hindustan Times. 👇🏽

https://archive.ph/9GMTJ

https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/04/06/bbc-israel-attack/

Tariffs on duct tape and baling wire are going to really drive up Cybertruck production costs.

Folx, if you’re on Instagram and care about our few remaining urban green spaces, follow https://www.instagram.com/savecityforests which is fighting to defend 400 acres of woodland in the University of Hyderabad, which the state government is hacking down so it can auction the land.

She lies, moss-covered, in a neglected Dehradun garden. The friend who made this picture calls it The Reading Girl of Dehradun.
(Sculpted by MN Tyagi who retired there from teaching at Jamia Millia Islamia's Faculty of Fine Arts, where his statue of Ghalib stands on the lawns of the main campus.)

If you are (or know) an upcoming musician, this is a great opportunity to showcase your original work. Please share.

https://thegoaproject.wordpress.com/2025/03/20/tune-up-you/

@gatesvp @grheavyroller @pluralistic The major difference between the coming crash and the previous one is that in 1929 the wealthy threw THEMSELVES out of windows.

'It was dark. They made their way back to their tents. Their old life was gone—their village, Al-Qarara, their house built with the money Amr's father saved during the 30 years he worked in the Persian Gulf—their orchards, their school, the local mosque and the town's cultural museum with artifacts dating from 4,000 B.C.

Blasted into rubble...'

https://dawnmena.org/the-death-of-amr-portrait-of-a-genocide/

Why I recommend against Brave

https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/

<- this is serious. Said it before, I will say it again. Do not use the Brave browser. It is a corrupt product which is insecure, repeatedly steals from others, founded & run by an immoral & unethical bigot.

DO NOT USE BRAVE.

"S completed her PhD in Botany on the impact of climate change on J&K’s biodiversity in 2019.

She said she spent years studying because she believed that education would build a future for her.

Instead, multiple rejections, in response to her applications for a job as assistant professor in five institutions over the past six years have left her disillusioned"

https://article-14.com/post/street-vendor-with-a-phd-in-j-k-as-region-struggles-with-india-s-highest-youth-unemployment-67e61453ed8fd?s=09

An expanded form of the "Chinese curse", which is not really Chinese, but is most definitely a curse:

May you live in interesting times
May you meet your heroes
May you come to the attention of people in high places
May all your dreams come true.

Considering no mutuals seem to be here — or if they are, they are avoiding me — I could probably do that here.

Feeling like I need to make an anony account somewhere so I can yell at myself properly.